Fishponzan, who will probably regret this, asked me to tell him about the state I live in, well actually he asked me about Wisconsin, not the foggy mental state I live in, and I started answering his comment.  It didn't surprise me at all that I got carried away as I answered, but when the comment reached gargantuan post size I thought I'd better just post it here.

He has been sick, the sniffling victim of one of those summer colds that always seem so unfair.  Colds belong in chilly winter months, when you can huddle in a blanket on the couch and be glad you don't have to go out into the elements.  Sorry Fishponzan, you've suffered enough, but to add more to the burden you bear, here is the answer to your question.  I've printed the whole comment, so enjoy the fussing at the beginning, I didn't delete it:

Mr. Fish, I do hope you are feeling better.  Shall I fuss over you?  Are you resting enough, come on, take it easy, just settle back there.  Drink something, no put that down, I mean something healthy, not that stuff.  Try this nice tea instead.  Jean is quite sick and is finding the tea to be very soothing; I hope it will help you as well.

fficeffice" /> 

OK, now if I tell you I tried to listen to Tom Waits and Joe Strummer, but couldn't find them where I had the skill to look, would you tell what you like about these songs?

.

And you would like to know about ffice:smarttags" />Wisconsin, would you?  OK, if you will rest, I will tell you a bit about it.

Before I start, I will tell you that I've never lived anywhere else, so that my impressions, both positive and negative are highly subjective.  And I haven't traveled abroad, except that Canada has let me in a bit, but I have been in several fairly distant areas of this country and have some idea of what is on the standard menu and what things are extra tasty.

When you asked about this place, I tried to take a good perceptive look as I went about my business around the town where I live, a green suburb of 35,000 people within about a 25 minute expressway drive of the Lake Michigan shoreline and downtown Milwaukee, a city which struggles to keep it's place as an industrial and commercial center, always overshadowed by Chicago, 90 minutes to the south, and even by Minneapolis Minnesota, 6 hours west.  But Milwaukee is pleasant, population 600,000, metro population 1.6 million, with a surprisingly good variety of recreation and arts opportunities, an excellent museum and zoo with national reputations, one of the countries best music festivals, rich ethnic traditions and celebrations, and a lot of green spaces for outdoor recreation.  It also struggles with conditions that make it one of the most racially segregated cities in the country and with the social and economic problems that this causes.

OK, that's the dry stuff.

Wisconsin has a rolling quality to the land, long gone glaciers moved stuff around digging here, dumping there, polishing it all down a bit, and as I said, there are just a few flat places, most merrily roll along, which is very pleasant.  It’s late summer now, and we’ve had a cool summer with enough rain, so everything is green.  In my meanderings I’ve noticed that there is a wonderful variety of vegetation here, nice tall trees that I didn’t see in states south of here down the midsection of the country.  Anyway, because there is such a variety, although there is a lot of green, it is interesting to see, so many shades of green, such different types of leaf forms that there is great variety of texture as well, and it’s all kind of layered, it’s like a collage, very lush this year in particular.

We don’t have those amber waves of grain you thought we do, but we do have corn fields, still green.  Most is for feed corn.  There are a lot of farms here, lots of crops that I can’t identify as I drive past them.  I hear there are a lot of soybeans, but I wouldn’t know a soybean from a magic bean, I’m not a farm girl.  The kind of farm that the state is most known for is dairy farms.  Wisconsin is known as the Dairy State, although California now produces more dairy products.  California, of course is huge, 3^rd largest state, 163,707 square miles compared to Wisconsin’s 23^rd place with 65,503 square miles.  That Wisconsin was first in production with less than half the area tells you something about how much of the farmland here is used to raise picturesque black and white milk machines.

Other than those things, imagine what can be grown on a tree, on a plant, or in the ground and if it doesn’t require too long a growing season, it is probably grown here.

Another thing that takes a lot of acreage here is water.  Lake Michigan borders the state on its east side, the wide Mississippi River is it's western border, and there are many inland lakes and rivers of all sizes and types, with all of the sports that are enjoyed where there is water. There are some nice waterfalls as well, but not a lot and not on the scale of the wonders found in other places.

There are small and huge forests, prairies, rocky areas pretty much anything you would want except for desert, true high mountains or tropical jungle, There are rocky bluffs along rivers, and if you are braver than I am you could sit on the edge of one of those high bluffs and watch bald eagles fly along the ridge on the other side, at least during seasons when they are not hatching eggs when those areas are protected.

As far as wildlife, whitetail deer are common enough outside of the city that I have to stop my car to let them cross the street as they forage neighborhood gardens.  My yard is also visited by chipmunks, squirrels, raccoons, mice, and possibly by opossums, although I’ve never seen one of those.  I know they live in the area however.  Up north you might also bump into a bear.  Birdlife is also varied and interesting, having herons glide over the house, looking so prehistoric and Pterodactyl-like is a treat although I also enjoy the smaller birds in the yard, especially cardinals and goldfinches.

We have four distinct seasons here.  There are bitter cold winter days, with temperatures that can reach 20 below zero fahrenheit, although usually don’t go that cold and a more normal bitter cold day will be about 10 below. Our winters haven’t been giving us the deep snow I remember from my childhood, although we have snowfalls of 6 inches or more and nothing closes down, those are considered fairly normal.  We are very good at driving on snowy icy streets and stepping through slush during at least four months of the year, and I have gotten stranded with a Girl Scout troop of 15 cheerful girls by an April blizzard that made roads impassable at Easter time.   And summer days can be very sticky, hot and humid; temperatures in the mid-nineties are not unusual.  In between we have springs that give us chilly rainy days and beautiful sunny days, and glorious autumn days, bright sunshine, crisp air, and those many kinds of plants turning every shade from bright yellow through oranges and reds to dark purplish mahogany.  Then the leaves fall, only the evergreens stay full, and winter comes again.

Since you have fallen asleep, bored to slumber many words ago, I’m just going to tiptoe out and let you rest.  I hope you get over that cold quickly, Mr. Fish, feel better.

Wisconsin is slightly larger than Germany.

The red blotch is Wisconsin, please note the nice big lakes,

 so wonderful that they are the Great Lakes.

The coffee house is nearly deserted.

A guy who looks like he lives at that laptop on the table by the window, another guy reading the newspaper in an armchair near the fireplace, the coffee guys, and me.

There is a  fan that raises goosebumps even on tropical hot, humid days and muffles busier days' conversations, keeping them from travelling to nearby eavesdroppers' ears.  Tonight the fan grates loudly, throwing out it's cold air onto empty chairs pulled up against empty tables.

Music is playing over the sound of the fan, songs you don't know sung by people you've never heard of and aren't listening to now either.  When the recording is repeated in an hour you will be sure you've never heard them before.

The newspaper now old to him, the newly informed reader drops it onto a table, stands up stiffly, and goes out the door to make some news of his own, checking his watch as he leaves.

It's dead in here.

After a while one coffee guy deserts his post to check out the discarded sports section.  When he goes back behind the counter, he asks the other coffee guy, "How about those Packers?"   Lack of interest is relayed with a bored look and shrug as the guy who stayed at his post fusses with the already neat work area.  No conversation follows; where there is no sports talk, there is no talk at all.

The door's bell jingles as two girls walk in, cute and dressed to make an impression, hair and makeup carelessly perfect.  The time they took to craft it gives the coffee guys their payoff for working on a Saturday night and waiting on the animated pair, the guys suddenly enjoy their jobs gain.  Women love coffee guys, love their flirty banter and the flourish with which they serve white chocolate mochas and Passion Green Tea Smoothies.  Chilled confections in hand, the women breeze out the door, hopefully heading to a more peopled and more exciting Saturday night.

More quiet.  Suddenly Laptop Jockey raises his hands in victory, elated at prevailing over the task he has been laboring over.  His triumphant smile is a second old when it fades back into a look of absorbed concern, frowning once again at the screen, intent only on his mute companion.

A new song penetrates the rattling drone of the never ceasing fan. An unremarkable voice, a woman's voice backed by syruppy strings croons, "You'd be so nice to come home to."  I shiver.  I gather my papers, my pencils, my purse.  I smile at the restless coffee guy's "'night" and go out to my car in the dark parking lot.

Just sitting with a beloved friend today, as the clock's slow ticking sets off hollow echoes in sad spaces.

After yesterday's hours of somber countenance and quiet companionship, things have been worked out and today should be a different experience.

From the lookout point of before 7 AM, my two scholars already out of the house and in someone else's sphere of responsibility, the day looks fine and fair. 

In fact, if I had to describe today, I think I'd say something a little like this:

It's Friday, violin lesson day. 

This is a great place if your little genius excels at a musical instrument.  Besides the usual kindly music teachers that one can find almost anywhere, and schools which still offer orchestra and band programs, the neighboring cities of Milwaukee and Waukesha each have fine symphony orchestras with world class musicians, many of whom teach as well.

So, it puzzles people when they hear that Jean's teacher lives fifty minutes away from us, that we drive like our rear bumper is on fire on crowded surface streets and then streak through interstate traffic to a lakefront cabin.  There Mrs. A guides students through the intricate art of fingering and bowing and producing beautiful music.  And we are happy to pay her top dollar to do so, and never count it as money poorly spent.  When Jean's old teacher told us that it was time for her to move up the ladder to a different level of teacher and two teachers who weren't sure they would have time on their fall schedules agreed to take on the then thirteen year old, we paid both teachers and went to both houses each week.  Good teachers can pick and choose their students and that summer was Jean's audition.  I did my part by paying cheerfully.  And when I paid Mrs. A, who intimidates me still, four years later, I ironed the currency.   I didn't want crass wrinkled bills to spoil my daughter's chances to study with her.

Travelling the distance we do, I usually make sure my car is gassed up and ready to go so that Jean and I can race to the 4PM lesson.  Today I was unprepared.  As I started the engine, I saw that there was less than a quarter tank of gas, but because we were late setting out, I decided to take a chance and skip the gas station.  I was sure we would make it.  Well, almost sure.  Sure enough, anyway.

And then we hit the traffic between our house and the expressway.  Trucks, busses, cars all conspiring to sit in the way, wasting my gas.  Lights timed to turn yellow-to-red just as we reached them and long lines everywhere sucked skimpy fuel, insufficient time, and scarce driver patience until it was unavoidable.  We would commit the unforgiveable rudeness of being late for the lesson.

After the shortened lesson, as I started the car again, chastened and low, the gas gauge was accented by the low fuel light, which had come on as we got off the expressway forty-five minutes earlier.  I had ignored it then, although the seed of panic had been planted in my stuck in the middle of almost nowhere mind.  We had a distance to go to get to a gas station, and not a lot of willing helpers to push us if we ran out of gas.  What to do?  Risk the further contempt of the indomitable Mrs. A, she of long memory and impeccable habits?

And my creative musician daughter provided me with the answer which got us home.

Jean said, "Put it in neutral and coast down the hills," and that is what we did, laughing at the silliness of it, putting the car into drive to drive up the hills, then at the top switching to neutral, and hating to have to brake for turns, coasting to the crest of the next little hill if we were lucky enough to make it, or putting the car into drive and chugging up the hill with precious gas being used up.  That is how we left the lakeside cottage and drove the twisty hilly drive to the main road.  Then we had to use gas to get to the gas station in the nearby town where the tank took $30.01 worth of regular grade gasoline, cheerfully paid for.  The smile I wore was still on my face from that funny slow up and faster down ride on those back roads.

I'm an

abrasion,

a scrape

of  skin across gravel.

I'm a

tatter,

a shred

of knuckle across  grater.

I'm a

slash

a  gash

of flesh around razor

I'm a

rend

a rip

of finger on  thornprick.

I'm

a snarl

a scream

shrill out into deaf space.

Pronunciation:   'mesij
WordNet Dictionary
	Definition:		[n]  a communication (usually brief) that is written or spoken or signaled; "he sent a three-word message" [n]  what a communication that is about something is about [v]  send a message; "There is no messaging service at this company" [v]  send as a message; "She messaged the final report by fax" [v]  send a message to; "She messaged the committee"

Then why is it when I email, write, post, or comment, is it more like:

Mess-age    [n]  a mess sent by email, letter, post, or comment, most often causing an acute feeling of communicator's remorse.